KALIA scheme launched in Odisha

Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) is a support scheme of Odisha whose primary targets are small farmers, cultivators and landless agricultural labourers. The scheme involves payments to encourage cultivation and associated activities.

Odisha would spend Rs 10,180 crore over three years until 2020-21 in providing financial assistance to cultivators and landless agricultural labourers benefitting 92% of the cultivators in the state and including every category from big farmers to landless cultivators.

The government would provide Rs 10,000 per family as assistance for cultivation, Rs 5,000 each in the Kharif and Rabi seasons, for five cropping seasons between 2018-19 and 2021-22.

The financial assistance under the scheme is not linked to the quantum of land owned.

The scheme also targets landless households, specifically SC and ST families as they will be supported with a unit cost of Rs 12,500 for activities like goat rearing, mushroom cultivation, beekeeping, poultry farming and fishery.

The Scheme also provides a life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh and additional personal accident coverage of the same amount for 57 lakh households.

The Scheme also proposes interest-free crop loans up to Rs 50,000.

The scheme is proposed as an alternative to the demand of farm loan waiver.

The scheme strives to target rural activities as a whole by supporting farming on a small scale, sharecropping, fishing and animal herding which doesn’t get covered under loan waiver schemes.